HackNY Conscripts Three Times as Many Students As Last Year to the Startup Life

Betabeat has the first word on HackNY’s new batch of fellows for 2011. The campaign to “keep kids off the Street” will triple in size to 35 students, from the hundreds that applied, thanks to funding from New York’s start-up community, groups like Internet Society and the Kauffman Foundation, and investors like Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Gotham, and First Round Capital.

Hundreds of New York start-ups also submitted their offer: a technological problem to solve (and mentor for each fellow). HackNY co-founders Evan Korth and Chris Wiggins whittled that list down to 33.

Betabeat asked Mr. Korth whether HackNY sees itself in competition for talent with other local, well-heeled initiatives like TechStars. “No,” emailed Mr. Korth. “We see programs like Techstars as part of the ecosystem we hope to help. A 2010 Fellow, Tal Safran, became a TechStars Hackstar after he completed the hackNY program. Monday night we held an event at Pivotal Labs and asked David Tisch to speak to the Fellows about the TechStars program. We would love to see our students go on to work at start-ups in NYC, start their own companies (possibly with the help of incubators or accelerators), and generally kick ass in the innovation community.”

What does he say to non-believers out there skeptical about whether drawing developers away from Wall Street will make the world a better place? “HackNY is about expanding the range of opportunities available to technical students. The banks still recruit on campus. hackNY is helping to make sure college students also know about opportunities at smaller companies,” Mr. Korth wrote, adding, “Please direct any skeptics to me or Chris. We would be happy to have coffee with them. :)”

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